No One Had Heard of This Blender Company... Until the CEO Threw an iPhone in One

Aside from a great, fun, relatable story tonight, we are also soft launching a new feature in Notes - a free weekly tool! Yep, each week we will be giving away a digital tool that you can use to implement your genius. See below.

Tom Dickson did not look like a YouTube star.

White lab coat. Dad energy. A kitchen appliance company hardly anyone had heard of.

In the mid-2000s, “Blendtec” was a solid but small blender brand. They sold to smoothie shops, not the masses. Outside of a few commercial kitchens, their blenders were basically invisible.

Then Tom got an idea.

The Big Idea

It started in the Blendtec R&D lab, where the team would test blenders by throwing all kinds of random stuff into them - marbles, pieces of wood, anything they could find.

Then one day, someone said, “This is crazy. We should film it.”

Eureka!

And so they did.

Tom pulled on his white lab coat, an employee turned on the camera, and with deadpan seriousness, Tom asked the question that would change everything:

Then, in went… an iPhone.

iPhone Smoothie, Anyone?

The iPhone turned to dust in seconds. The video cost almost nothing to make. No big ad agency was needed. No fancy special effects. Just Tom, a blender, some protective goggles, and a willingness to destroy random household objects on camera.

And of course, then they put the video on YouTube. And it got almost a million views. And so then they did another, and another.

The Blendtec entertainingly pulverized Star Wars toys, key fobs, an Amazon Echo, golf balls, rake handles, chickens, even diamonds.

And the internet could not look away.

The Breakthrough

Within two years, the series had more than 100 million views. Blendtec’s sales jumped 700%. And suddenly, a company no one outside the food industry had heard of was a household name.

All because the CEO decided to have some fun with what they already had.

🛠️ Free Tool of the Week

Video Brainstorm Template – A one-page worksheet to turn your quirkiest business ideas into a short, shareable video series. Download the PDF here!

The Takeaway

You do not need a big marketing budget to make a big impact. You need:

• A fun idea

• The courage to go for it

• And a dash of willingness to break the mold (and maybe an iPhone)

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Steal This Strategy!

📖 Book – Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business by Jay Conrad Levinson
The classic guide to low-cost, high-impact marketing. Still as relevant today as when it was written.

🎥 Video – Will It Blend? iPhone
The original Blendtec video that made millions of people laugh… and buy blenders.

🌐 Website – Canva
Free, drag-and-drop design tool to make professional social media graphics and video thumbnails.

🛠️ Tool – CapCut
A free AI powered video editor (desktop & mobile) perfect for creating quick, polished social content without a pro team.

About Steve

Steve Strauss is the best-selling author of The Small Business Bible (and 17 other books), Inc.’s small business columnist, a lawyer (non-practicing), and an entrepreneur. He sold his last venture, TheSelfEmployed.com to Mark Cuban & Zen Business. Need a ghostwriter or a newsletter for your business? Contact Steve!